Tech Tip on a Tuesday Morning – Belarc Advisor

November 3, 2009 by 6 Comments

I am starting a new series of short articles today. I often come across great little tips that do not warrant a full-blown article so I have decided to post a quick one each Tuesday morning.

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Tech Tip

You can use the Belarc Advisor to get a detailed list of installed software, licenses and drivers on your PC prior to a clean installation. Belarc Advisor creates a web page that lists ALL of your PC data. This program is great! Seriously.

Use

Windows 7 will require you to do a clean install if you are upgrading from XP or Vista Ultimate. Some of us will do a fresh install anyway. Most of us need some way of making sure we get all the programs and applications installed correctly after the upgrade. I know I forget how many programs I have installed over the years and am not sure about which drivers are for which piece of hardware. Run this small app and let it analyze your system. You will be surprised at how much information it puts on the web page!

Link

http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

Results

With the release of Windows 7 we are all weary of the clean installs and the hassle of dealing with the existing programs on our PCs. I was able to print out the profile and manually “check off” the programs that I wanted to reinstall on my PC. I also saw a lot of old crap that I had forgot was on the system. During the two hour Windows 7 automated install I used the Belarc printout and another PC to download new applications, find installation CDs etc. so I was ready to go once Windows 7 completed the installation process. I am confident that I did not miss any programs and actually got rid of old outdated programs. Did I really need to keep applications like Dell Video Chat and Mionet? Hell no.

See you next Tuesday,

Tim

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About Timothy Daleo

This post was written by who has written 229 posts on Connected Digital World. Timothy Daleo is a Project Resource Analyst and Oracle Applications Trainer in Pasadena, California. In addition to financial analysis, Tim has been developing training materials since 2003 and supporting direct projects through various auxiliary databases since 2005.
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  • Vbr

    I've tried it to get a list of all the applications installed on my system – good to figure out what to reinstall after upgrading/reinstalling the OS (and by upgrade I mean clean install).

    However, I notice that the generated report has a list of my software license keys, including my OS and Office, etc, so I wouldn't advise printing it out and leave it lying around. Heck, avoid keeping it on the hard drive for too long, in case one's computer gets hacked, or if some nosy roommate is looking around and is aware of this software.

    • Timothy Daleo

      First, most WHS users have a username and password on their PCs so I am sure the document could be safe. In addition, if

  • Andrew Edney

    Thanks Tim

    I've been using Belarc Advisor for a number of years, I find it really useful and a great tool.

    Andrew

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  • http://simon-may.com Simon May

    What a great tool, very useful for doing a reinstall.

    @vbr don't forget that those license keys are already on your PC, since that's where Belarc get's them from. I don't see a big security issue here, very handy stuff.

    Si